Premium-Only Sandboxes

[Marianne McCann]

So, as discussed in...

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/New-Premium-Membership-Features/ba-p/1076967

...there's new premium only sandboxes on the mainland.

The new 'boxes are shown at http://secondlife.com/destinations/premium/sandboxes

What do y'all think? Good idea? Bad idea? What will the affect be on the existing mainland sandboxes, if any?

 

[Deej Kasshiki]

Thanks for the heads up Marianne.

I'm pretty "meh" about it, honestly. I guess it's a nice start but most of us who are already premium have land where we can build anyway. Maybe it's an incentive to those hardcore builders who are stuck working in public sandboxes but, I'd think those people would be few and far between.

The people that SL is attracting now seem to be more the socializers. Maybe the free gifts will appeal to them but, I don't see the "members only" sandboxes as a big draw for these folks.

[Knutz Scorpio]

I noticed eight of these sandboxes, arranged in two 2x2 islands,  off of the west coast of the Linden Homes Continent.  Thought you might like to know.

[Persephone Emerald]

That sounds like they are primarily being marketed to the Linden Home owners then.

 

[Marigold Devin]

It's a great idea; should be very few, if any, of the griefer/spam attacks you get in the regular sandboxes.

It won't affect the other sandboxes; they will be as rowdy as ever.

[Ceera Murakami]

I expect they will result in a lot of existing Premium members tiering DOWN, because they can build in those elete "Premium Only" sandbox areas, presumably away from griefers, and no longer have much reason to maintain excess prim count to be able to build on their own land. For example, I keep 400+ prims free on my home parcel, so I can build a new house of customize a furry avatar without having to delete my current home or work in a public sandbox while fighting off griefers and IP thieves. If I had access to a "safe" sandbox with very limited access, where the griefers couldn't go without risking losing a Premium account that is much more tracable to their real ID, then why would I pay for that extra land to build on? Why not pay less tier and build in those safe sandboxes?

For potential new Premium members, it also reduces the incentive to get lots of land so you can build in peace.

As for the free furniture, what was the prim count on that stuff? It looked pretty primmy to me in the images. Would it even fit in the scant 117 prim limit of a Linden Home? Premium members who have normal parcels most likely already have far better furniture, and wouldn't use the freebie stuff. Free furniture would appeal mostly to the newbies living solely in a Linden Home, and so should be very low-prim.

[Ceera Murakami]

Take a good look at that sign in the pic of a Premium Sandbox, and note the restriction on the last line:

* Simple scripts only.

Okay, I guess there's very little reason for a scripter or a pro builder to consider building anything there then. Add a few scripted access-controlled doors and some centrally controlled windows to a house and you can't build it in these 'Premium Only' sandboxes? Who decides what is "simple" for a script?

If I had any notion to go Premium to use those sandbox areas, they just flatlined it.

They probably wouldn't even allow my furry avatar in their high-falutin' sandbox. The scripts in my avatar are far from 'simple'.

[Polenth Yue]

The general idea is good. I'd use them if it wasn't for the 'simple script' limit. But the scripts are really a dealbreaker, as much of the stuff I want space to test is scripted. It'd be nice if a few were set aside as sandboxes for advanced builders (allowing complex scripts).

[Melita Magic]

I say

 

/yay

[Qie Niangao]

---

Ceera Murakami wrote:

Who decides what is "simple" for a script?

---

We just got some long-awaited ability to do exactly that:  OBJECT_SCRIPT_MEMORY and OBJECT_SCRIPT_TIME constants to llGetObjectDetails().  This, plus the new abiity to llSetMemoryLimit() means that there's no longer any reason that simple scripts -- even Mono-compiled -- need to take up much more sim memory than necessary.

I don't know if the Lindens will define "simple" limits on scripts in these sandboxes, but they now have a mechanism for enforcing such limits.  As does every landowner.

[Jacki Silverfall]

I just go to the Hangouts sandbox. Or home now that it's bigger.

[Nulflux Negulesco]

I'm not trying to complain because I'm happy that you're making premium more valuable BUT there's a couple things that make me feel like this will be less popular than it could be. First of all, I visited a few of these premium sandboxes and I was immediately discouraged from using them because they had a return time of 4 hours. Any free member can find a sandbox with a longer return time (or for that matter a Linden Owned or abandoned land with NO return time). As a creator I can tell you that we rarely create a complete item in 4 hours (especially when dealing with sculpt/mesh or scripts)... so for this to be usable (to me) I would need a return time of at least 8 hours and preferrably 16 hours. Second, it is my opinion that Linden intrudes in the merchant arena and offers unfair advantages to certain merchants over others. Why? Because things like 'free prim items' act as an advertising mechanism that give an advantage to 'chosen' merchants above everyone else. Therefore, in my belief Linden Lab should either a) allow all merchants to have the same opportunity as anyone else to have their items 'given for free' on a mass distribution such as these 'free sofa's are, or b) refrain from playing favorites and giving unfair advantages that we cannot all obtain equally! Other than that I'm fairly pleased with the current state of SL, it's not perfect but it's getting better all the time and thanks for continuing to improve on the technology

[Tenly]

it means a lot to get this feature. my home doesnt let me do a lot because of the 117 prim limit, so when I want to rez a shoe template I have to go to a public sandbox. I cant even tell you how many times Ive been harrassed, run over and just had an entire house just suddenly dropped on my head and my work. 

Im looking forward to seeing what the gifts will be, and wondering if anyone realizes what a valueable way that is to market your fine wares...assuming lindens let folks somehow win a spot as a free gift giver? Maybe they have a lottery one can pool into? not that I have anything of value to give "yet". :-)

tenly

[Ashy Calcutt]

I think its an ok Idea. For the simple fact some Public sandboxes are laggy and do have alot of griefers  now I do simple builds and have my own land to build on.. I do whatever I can to avoid going to a public sandbox.. But since IM not a pro builder my opinion don't really matter here but if you like it good if you don't that alright :3